Valtteri Bottas admits he was suprised that Mercedes appeared to suggest that an error on his behalf partly contributed to his pit stop debacle at the Monaco Grand Prix. The Finn was forced to retire from the race when mechanics were unable to remove the front right tyre on his car due to a wheel nut becoming lodged in. Team principal Toto Wolff went on to partly blame Bottas for where he had positioned the car in the pit box. "Valtteri stopped a little too early," Wolff told Auto Motor und Sport. "This meant that the mechanic had to apply the impact wrench at an angle. The awkward angle damaged the wheel nut and we couldn't bring it down." However, Bottas does not agree with this assessment of the incident. "I was surprised [to hear that]," the driver told RacingNews365.com and other select media. "I saw the video, and for me it was pretty spot on where I stopped, so I was quite surprised about that, yeah." When asked if he had talked about this with Wolff after the race, Bottas said: "About that? No, not really, kind of left it there." The Finn had been having a stronger race in Monaco than teammate Lewis Hamilton when he was forced to retire, and he admits that it was tough to get over the disappointment afterwards. "Personally, for me, it took a couple of days [to get over]," Bottas explained. "Because it's not been the best start of the season, and that kind of an issue when it hits you, and obviously when your target is to get some good points, it's disappointing. "But I got over it, I've found my ways to get through it and I'm keen to race again." Bottas enters the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend in fourth place in the Drivers' Championship, having been overtaken by McLaren's Lando Norris at Monaco.
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